Club de Golf Royal Montreal

Royal Montreal holds the distinction of being the oldest golf club in North America, founded in 1873 — a fact that carries genuine weight when you walk its grounds. The club earned its "Royal" designation from Queen Victoria that same founding year, and it has spent the century and a half since cultivating a reputation as one of Canada's most prestigious private institutions. The current home on Île-Bizard, a river island west of Montreal, is the club's fourth site; Dick Wilson designed the Blue Course in the early 1960s, and Rees Jones later refined it. The course has hosted the Canadian Open multiple times, most recently in 2014, giving it a tournament pedigree few Canadian clubs can match.

Île-Bizard sits in the Rivières-des-Prairies and Lac des Deux Montagnes watershed, and water is a constant presence — both visually and strategically. The Blue Course in particular threads through mature trees with several holes exposed to lake and wetland edges, demanding accuracy from players who might otherwise be distracted by the setting.

Montreal's golf season is genuinely compressed by Quebec winters, which lends a certain intensity to the summer months here. Playing Royal Montreal is less about checking off a bucket list and more about stepping into a living institution — one where the weight of North American golf history is quietly, unmistakably present.